“Not the time!” Harben shouted. “When isn’t it time to hate the MacArrans?” He turned to Bronwyn and Stephen. “See this?” he asked, indicating his empty sleeve. “What can a man do without a right arm? The MacArran himself took it off of me. Six years ago he raided my cattle and took my arm with him.”
“Six years,” Bronwyn whispered. “Didn’t the MacGregor do some raiding too, and didn’t he kill four men then?”
Harben waved his hand. “Served them right for stealin’ from us.”
“Should the MacArran have sat still while you killed his men? He shouldn’t have revenged himself?”
“Bronwyn—” Stephen warned.
“Leave her alone,” Harben snapped. “Ye got yerself a good one there. What do ye know of the MacArran?”
“He—”
Kirsty cut her off. “Bronwyn lives next to the border of MacArran land.”
“Ah, you must have a lot of trouble with them,” Harben said with sympathy.
“Actually, none at all,” Bronwyn smiled.
“Ye must tell me how—” Harben began.
Kirsty stood. “I think it’s time we all went to bed. We have to see to the milking in the morning.”
“Aye,” Harben said. “Mornings come earlier with every year.”
It was later, when Bronwyn and Stephen were snuggled together under their plaids on a straw pallet, that she spoke. “Don’t give me any lecture,” she whispered with resignation in her voice.
He pulled her closer to him. “I wasn’t planning to. I like to see you and old Harben argue. I think that for once you’ve met your match. Neither of you can believe anything good about the other’s clan.”
He kissed her when she started to reply, then they settled peacefully into sleep.
A rider brought news the next morning that changed Stephen’s plans to leave Harben’s cottage. It was known that the MacArran was missing as well as her English husband. The MacGregor had offered a generous reward for their capture.
Stephen grinned when Harben said he’d like to turn the ugly witch-woman over to the MacGregor. He stopped grinning when Harben referred to the Englishman as a worthless peacock who wasn’t worth the dirt to bury him in. Stephen scowled as Bronwyn began to agree heartily with Harben’s opinion of the English. She egged him on until Kirsty made her father stop his tirade.
“I’ll repay you for that,” Stephen whispered as they went to the lean-to, where the milk cows waited.
“By subjecting me to your greedy English ways?” she teased, then walked ahead of him, her hips swaying seductively.
Stephen started to reply but he suddenly felt very greedy. He smiled at her and went to a cow.
Bronwyn had spent her life around the MacArran crofters, and she was at least familiar with farm work. Stephen knew only how to direct fighting men. He sat on a stool beside the cow and stared in bewilderment.
“Here,” Kirsty said quietly and showed him how to squeeze milk from the cow. She ignored his cursing when he managed to get more milk on himself than in the bucket.
Later they pooled their milk so that Stephen’s pail was as full as theirs. Nesta looked puzzled at the unusually low milk production, but she smiled fondly at all of them and sent them to the fields.
There were winter vegetables to be gathered and fences to be repaired. Donald and Bronwyn had a good laugh when they saw Stephen’s face at the sight of the stone fence. He was as pleased as a child that here at last was something he could do. He carried more rocks than the rest of them put together. He was putting his back to what was more a boulder when Kirsty nudged Bronwyn. Harben was looking at Stephen with adoration in his eyes. “I think you have a home as long as you want,” Kirsty said quietly.
“Thank you,” Bronwyn said, and again she had the feeling that Kirsty knew a great deal about her.
That night it was a very tired group who returned to the warm little cottage. But they were a happy group. Harben watched them as they teased each other and laughed, recounting the day’s events. He lit a pipe, put his elbow on his knee, and for the first time in years he didn’t think of the day he’d lost his arm.
It was two days later when Kirsty and Bronwyn went to look for lichens on the other side of the rock ridge behind the cottage. Rory Stephen was snuggled warmly in a plaid, sleeping in a basket beside the stream. It had snowed lightly during the night, and the women were taking their time with their foraging. They were laughing, talking about the farm, their husbands. Bronwyn had never felt freer in her life. She had no responsibilities, no worries.
Suddenly she froze where she was. She hadn’t really heard a sound, but something in the air made her know that danger was near. She’d had too many years of training to forget them for an instant.
“Kirsty,” she said quietly—it was the voice of command.